Courtney in Anchorage, Alaska, and her teenage son disagree: Should that collection of music be called a mixtape or a mixed tape? The former is far more common, and reflects that linguistic process known as lenition or “softening,” in which the -ed...
Kamela works as a nurse in Anchorage, Alaska. When she asked a patient how how he was doing post-surgery, the man responded with Well, I haven’t grown gills yet. It’s a jocular way of acknowledging that although he hadn’t recovered completely...
Siberian dilemma n.— «One of the things that has happened is similar to what the military calls the Siberian dilemma. If you break through the ice, you have four minutes to live. If you pull out of the ice, in the frozen air you have two minutes—no...
Los Anchorage n.— «That was in the early 1900s when Seward was the main supply port for miners in the Hope/Sunrise district of the Kenai and where a still-hoped-for Alaska railroad would start. Seward was a boom town, and Anchorage was, well...

